Sundays third and final day of the fourth round and third triple header weekend of the GT4 America Series at Road America proved itself to be another display of driver domination from Flying Lizards Gentleman driver Michael Dinan over the events three races in both Sprint and Sprint X.

Having already secured three class podium finishes out the four races so far, Sunday would see Dinan extend his 2020 trophy haul with another two class wins over the day as Dinan literally raced with the class of driver above his own all weekend. Indeed, Road America proved itself to be another fine display from all the Aston Martin Racing teams over both series of racing as Rearden Racing, Bsport Racing and Rennsport One all enjoyed multiple visits to the socially distanced podium.


Road American even became the first event since the opening round of the Series at the Circuit of The Americas to enjoy the company of race fans over the weekend although not many probably enjoyed the torrential rain of Friday. Their patience was ultimately rewarded with clear skies and sunshine for the remainder of the race programme so hopefully all came away with smiles on their faces.

With Sprint X being the first race of Sunday, Dinan would again be the front AMR car on the grid starting from P4 on the grid with the #15 BSport AMR of Bryan Putt in P10 and the #33 Rennsport One of Matt Dalton in P17. This race also saw the return of the Rearden Racing #91 car of Jeff Burton and Vesko Kosarov after engine issues early on Friday saw that car not compete in either of the two opening races.


Despite an initial clean start the race soon came under the control of the Safety Car as car cars tangled  into the concrete wall with another car having its bonnet lift and obscure its windscreen. Fortunately that was just a quick FCY and soon the remaining twenty cars were on their way.

Having missed all racing since Race 1 of Sprint and his accident, Burton was the one making quick progress through the field as having started from last on the grid he was soon snapping at the heals of Putt and Dalton in P10 whilst Dinan was way out front in the Pro-Am class (P3 overall) and chasing after the Silver Cup race leader and the Pro-Am Porsche ahead.


With all four AMR cars electing to pit for their respective Pro drivers as soon as the pit window would allow, as Kozarov (#91), Gallagher (#33) and Koch (#15) exited pit lane almost line astern and that would lead up to a great battle between them to the flag.

Buoyed by there earlier two podium finishes, AMR Academy Driver Kenton Koch managed to pass both the Rearden and Rennsport One car for position and after one more overtake found himself upon what would be the final step of the Pro-Am podium early on into his 30 minute stint.


With little over ten minutes remaining, Dinan passed the #47 Nolan Porsche to take both P2 overall and the lead in Pro-Am as both Gallagher and Kozarov continued battle for P8 overall. By the chequered flag, Dinan and Foley continued to secure P2 overall and P1 in class with the #15 BSPort holding on to their third podium in P5 overall and another P3 finish in class.


The efforts of Rearden Racing to sort the engine issue of the #91 out was rewarded with the cars P6 finish in class whilst the red, white and black Rennsport car finished just ahead in P5.

The final race of the GT4 America programme was the third Sprint race - another event so far dominated by the #210 Flying Lizard Vantage with Dinan having secured two wins out of two so far.


With fastest laps per class again deciding the starting order for the final race it came as no surprise that the #210 car would again start as the lead Aston from P4 overall and P1 in the Am Class. Paul Terry's #59 Rearden car would be close behind in P5/P2 whilst his team mate Jeff Burton would also return to for this final race of the day aboard his #91 car. The #191 that he usually races in this class was obviously too badly damaged to repair at the circuit following his Race 1 accident but at least it was good to have him back on the grid.


As with all the races so far, Dinan again made his move right from the start temporally stepping up to P3 overall before leaving the door open for that car to repass him going through the opening sequence of corners and whilst Terry dropped two early places, his team mate Burton picked up tow early places as he again had to start from the rear of the grid.

With three Pro cars ahead, Dinan soon realised that he didn't need to pass any of the cars infront as long as he could keep up with them and they were faster than the chasing Am pack and soon that gap elongated itself to nearly ten seconds.


In their efforts to close that gap, both Terry and Burton started to make mistakes and errors of judgement as first Burton went wide and ragged through Turn 6 and Terry locked up heavily a few corners later.

With nobody able to close down the gaps to the cars ahead, Dinan would go onto secure another class win with his P4 overall finish as Terry would collect another podium finish for his weekend in P6 overall - P3 in class with team mate not too far behind in P7 overall - P4 in class. Hopefully that went to brighten up and otherwise expensive weekend for the lumber merchant!!


As the Series moves back to CoTA for the penultimate event of the season in little over three weeks time, the results from Road America still leave both Sprint and Sprint X as achievable targets for others should Dinan's excellent roll of race results come to a sudden end. Terry remains Dinan's nearest threat in Sprint bing just 40 points behind whilst in Sprint X Dinan/Foley remain 22 points behind Matt Travis and Jason Hart in Pro-Am.


So there is still all to play for at both CoTA and the season finale at Indianapolis in early October.

Photo credits - GT4 America / Flying Lizards / CSJ Motorsport

As we said only yesterday after Qualifying, Brands Hatch is a circuit that always entertains and excites but unfortunately for all three Aston Martin Racing runners today that was not to be in a good way.

With us welcoming back for a brief return into the Championship was the #7 Beechdean AMR Vantage GT3 of Andrew Howard being joined (this time only) by his former driver coach and multiple British GT Champion in Jonny Adam. Not having raced competitively since the end of last season, a single test at the circuit last week as well as multiple hours on the simulator was hoped to be enough for Howard and all looked good with their P4 Qualifying position.


In the GT4 Class, the two TF Sport Vantage GT4 cars of Championship leaders Jamie Caroline and Dan Vaughan had been top of the class all weekend so far alongside their sister #95 Vantage of Patrick Kibble and birthday boy Connor O'Brien. They had picked themselves up from their 'poor' performance of race 2 at Donington two weeks ago to claim a 1-2 on the grid for todays two hour race.

With the 'Am' drivers taking the start at an overcast and chilly Brands Hatch, the opening laps came without any real incident other than some door panels being redefined as the cars jostled for position. With two Silver Cup GT3's directly behind, Howard elected to let them pass at the start of the second lap as he looked to find his racing head again after nearly a year out of the sport but soon his lack of seat time became very apparent as he lost a further six places to almost the entire GT3 pack in under half a lap.


Further back, Vaughan had already been overtaken by the Toyota but was fast enough to hold onto his P3 slot but ahead of him, O'Brien was constant and smooth enough to hold a comfortable class lead. Former AMR racer Joradn Albert in the Ford Mustang was the person on the move in GT4 as he slowly cruised up towards the rear off the #97 car having started from second last in class but at least that was where his progression stopped for a time.

Coming up to the hour and the start of the pit stop window (which the GT4's had first option at this time) an impatient Mercedes AMG GT3 stuck his nose up the inside of O'Briens car coming out of Druids causing contact the spun the GT4 Class leader out right in front on the chasing GT4 pack. Fortunately no other contact was made and O'Brien was able to recover and continue.


Moments later, another altercation between two GT3 cars at Hawthorns sent the TPR Bentley into the gravel which brought out the Safety Car less out less than a minute from the start of the Pit Stop window. Luckily for TF Sport, both cars found themselves near pit in and where able to come in straight away whilst the leading Toyota chose to carry on one more lap.

The Safety Car however also washed away any chances of the Beechdean AMR team from recovering their P12 position as they found themselves behind the race leader at the worst time possible - that effectively put them a lap down to almost the entire GT3 field.


By the time the pit stops had sorted themselves out the Mustang of Matt Cowley was now in the lead of GT4 but with the #97 car of Caroline and the #95 of Kibble close behind as a failing tyre upon one of the HHC McLarens brought out another Safety Car for tyre debris across the circuit. At the restart it quickly became a four way battle between the Ford, the two Astons and the BMW of a Championship returning Ben Green.

Whilst Adam put in some of the quickest laps of the race so far, their race was effectively run and would eventually take the chequered flag in P9 but for the GT4 class, it wouldn't be over until they all took the chequered flag.


Three minutes remaining, and with the GT3 leaders now coming through the GT4 leaders into Druids, there was more side to side and front to rear bumping going on as all looked for track position relative to their class advisories. Going into what was to be the penultimate lap, the #95/#42 BMW/#97 went three wide out of the final corner and onto the start straight - again bumping into each other as first the #97 lost P2 before regaining P2 from the BMW going into Druids again.

Then going into the final lap the battles came to a head as a recovering Caroline made contact with the rear of Kibbles car going into Paddock Hill Bend sending the #95 off into the gravel trap and out of the race. Whilst the #97 was able to continue and take the flag for a provisional P3 in class, a 40 second post race penalty saw the #97 car demoted to P6 in the finishing order after the race.


Checking the amended results, the #95 was also classified as finishing P7 in class which at least gave them some points but not as many as certainly a P3 or P4 finish would have given them.

Whilst Tom Ferrier and his team deal with the aftermath of what happened going into the final lap, that incident may well serve his four youngsters with a firm reality check into their recent performances with them being as fast as they like during Free Practice and Qualifying - its where you are at the end of the race that really counts!!!


Still at the top of the Silver Cup and Teams Championship standings, these two full season entries now turn their attention to the sixth round of the Championship at Donington Park in just under three weeks time.

Photo credits - Jacob Ebrey

Having already scored on class win on the opening race day of the GT4 America's visit to Road America for another one of their race recovery triple headers, Michael Dinan and his Flying Lizard team went on to dominate proceedings with two more class and outright wins yesterday.

Starting with the second of three fifty minute Sprint races, the timings from race 1 are used to determined the grid order via their previous fastest laps. That placed the #59 Rearden Racing AMR Vantage of Paul Terry in P3 overall (P1 in Am Class) on the grid with the yellow accented AMR of Dinan next to him in P4 (P2 in class) with the #191 Rearden car of Jeff Burton again missing out as his team worked on to repair the damage of race 1's smash that took him and another car out in the wet on Friday.


As opposed to the wet of Friday afternoon, the now reduced starting grid of twelve cars were to enjoy a bright, sunny start to their second race of the weekend with Dinan being the more aware of the AMR runners to mug Terry at the start to take P3 from him as the pack went into turn 1. With the two Pro Class cars ahead, Dinan found himself being able to run with these guys as htheir collective pace gapped them from those in P4 and P5.

After twenty minutes of running Terry was eventually able to take the Ford Mustang of Staveley for position, lifting himself up to P4 overall and still P2 in class but minutes later Terry went into T1 too fast and spun himself around on the kerb (much like what his team mate Burton did in race 1 on Friday) to quickly loose out on his earlier hard work as he soon dropped down to P6 overall.


As the two leading Pro cars pushed on ahead, Dinan found himself being dropped into the no-mans land between them and the chasing pack but with the minutes counting down all he had to do was to keep it on the track to secure his 7th class win of the season.

So similar to race 1 of Friday, Race 2 produced another double AMR Am Class podium as Terry did enough to (a) keep his title challenge alive against Dinan and (b) secure his second podium of the weekend by claiming P6 overall and P3 in Class.


Then came after that perhaps Dinan's and Flying Lizards best performance of the season so with a P12 to overall race win in the second Sprint X race yesterday afternoon.

With the starting grid again being affected by the torrential rains of Friday, it wasn't possible for all the drivers to set a competitive lap time being Qualifying was red flagged due to the deteriorating track conditions. That again meant that many cars were out of their natural position at the start of the race and that certainly made for some very entertaining racing.


The #15 BSPort Racing AMR of AMR Academy Driver Kenton Koch was the highest placed AMR at the start and he certainly didn't waste anytime at the start as he both held onto his starting position and then pushed the Silver Cup drivers ahead. After Pat Gallagher's race of the season so far yesterday when he and his #33 Rennsport One car claimed their first podium of the year, he too was on a mission from his P12 start as he battled to keep ahead of Robbie Foleys #21 Flying Lizard AMR who started one place behind.

A slower BMW in P8 effectively served as an early chicane for the first five minutes of running that allowed the front runners to establish a large gap to the pack behind by the time that Gallagher finally got past. Foley meanwhile was having something of a slow or calculated start as his position in the field was steady as he had only climbed up to P11 by then.


With Koch enjoying himself at the front keeping the Silver #2 Porsche busy, Gallagher had moved up to P6 by the time that the pit window opened as Foley was carefully negotiating the teams fellow McLaren 570s for P8.

With the Pro's having done their work it was now down to their amateur drivers to capitalise upon any headway that had been made up till then. Bryan Putt emerged in overall second after his swap into the white #15 car with Dinan now up to P7 and Matt Dalton P10 in his #33 car.


The Flying Lizard team trimmed as much time off at their stop as they could and had to invoke their pit stop 'joker' by actually undercutting their minimum time by about a second. Having rode their luck there, Dinan 'rode his luck' on track with an outstanding demonstration of confidence and speed. Catching those in front by the rate of 2-3 seconds per lap it wasn't too long before the #21 car was upon to P4 overall but only had ten minutes or so remaining to make up the 10 seconds to the leading BMW.

Having dispatched Putt for P3 overall it only took Dinan another five minutes to get onto the tail of the leader and with a brave move into T1 on the final lap, Dinan had taken the overall lead - something that he would even extend to nearly 4 seconds at the chequered flag.



With Foley and Dinan claiming the top step, the #15 BSport Racing crew of Putt and Koch had also done enough to claim their second Sprint X podium of the weekend by finishing P5 overall and P3 in Pro-Am. The #33 Rennsport One AMR of Gallagher and Dalton would eventually finish P10 overall and P7 in class.

So that's yet another great result for the Aston Martin Racing runners in both Sprint and Sprint X with still one more race each on Sunday!!

Photo credits - GT$ America / Flying Lizards / CSJ Motorsport

Todays fifth round of the Nurburgring Langstrecken Serie from the Nordschleife proved itself to be something of a job well done for the #160 Garage 59 Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT8R.

Being the first competitive race for the modified Vantage GT4 platform that the team will race in the SP8T class at the forthcoming ADAC Total 24h event later next month, running any new car for the first time comes with risk and the final NLS round before the 24 hour allowed the team up to six hours of racing to prove the cars potential.


Qualifying for todays race in P65 out of the 160 car entry, drivers Alex West, Chris Goodwin and Daren Turner took the #160 to P2 in class, finishing just 4.5 minutes behind the class winner. That will be enough to give them the confidence that they were looking for ahead of the 24hour.


In the SP10 class however, the #176 Propsort Racing AMR Vantage GT4 faired not so well in the race as they too prepared themselves for the N24 completing only three laps!

Photo credits - Garage 59 / Prosport Racing

The opening salvo's into this weekends fourth round of the GT4 America Series from Road America has already produced some incredible sights and sounds as the seven Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4's from the Flying Lizard, Rearden Racing, BSport Racing And Rennsport One teams got back to business on Thursday with some private testing before the timed sessions of yesterday.

Going from the sunshine and the warmth of Thursday into the cooler and certainly wetter sessions of Friday even meant that some of the Qualifying had to be abandoned by the race organisers leaving the starting grid for the first Sprint race of yesterday being determined by the early Free Practice times.


Riding high on commitment and confidence after their near whitewashing with the race results at the last round at Sonoma a couple of weeks ago, the two Rearden cars of Paul Terry (#59), Jeff Burton (#191) and the highest placed AMR runner in the Championship, Michael Dinan in his now yellow accented #210 car looked 'racey' from the off at the start of Fridays first 50 minute Sprint race.

Terry found himself starting from P2 on the grid and amongst the Pro cars whilst Dinan was uncharacteristically down in P12 (Free Practice times remember) with Burton just behind him in P13.


With visibility being an obvious issue, the race started behind the Safety Car so that the drivers could pick out the standing water on track as the race then got off to a 'controlled' start by all after being waved off. During the opening two race laps, Dinan piled in the speed into the soaking wet circuit, full of confidence as he elevated himself from P12 to P4 - taking Terry for position in the process.

Just before the halfway mark, the Sin R1 car spun itself off on the exit of a corner and into (fortunately) an extensive tyre wall meaning that a Full Course Caution then Safety Car was needed for its extraction. With the Am class drivers now watching where each was going to catch and maintain their speed, Terry was learning from watching Dinan ahead whilst Burton was doing the same as he had risen up to P8 overall.


On the restart, Burton was a little too eager on the exit of turn 1 and spun off dropping himself down to P12 as Dinan initially let the top three Pro class cars go and race his own Class battle with Terry before circumstance and the errors of others had lifted the #210 car up to P2 overall.

With ten minutes remaining, Burton put in couple of fastest laps in the race as he looked to improve upon his then P8 position after taking confidence in passing two cars in two corners earlier but with just five minutes remaining, the #191 ran out of track (literally). Having passed one McLaren, he tried it with another but that driver appeared unsighted to Burton's position on track - the two cars touched and both became passengers into two very expensive looking race accidents.


As a result of that incident the race would ultimately finish under caution with Dinan eventually finishing P3 overall and P1 in Am Class with the #59 Paul Terry car finishing just behind in P4 overall and P2 in Class for another AMR 1-2 on the podium.


For the #191 car - the damage was apparently significant and the team will have their work cut out to repair it in time for any of the weekends remaining Sprint races.


Next out for the GT4's was the opening round of the longer, one hour race with driver change Sprint X Series with four AMR Vantage's destined to race within it - although that wasn't quite the case.

A 'technical issue' for Jeff Burtons second car meant that he and Vesko Kosarov were absent from the grid so that left Dinan/Michael Foley starting from P2, the #15 BSport Racing car of Bryan Putt/Kenton Koch P10 and a revitalised #33 Rennsport One car of Matt Dalton/Pat Gallagher in P17 - 22 cars from the original 29 cars that 'entered' the event!. One such car that would be missing from the event following an earlier incident would be the Panoz that Roman de Angelis (Heart of Racing Vantage GTD driver) although his team mate Ian James would still be running in his Panoz GT4.


At least the rain had stopped and the track dried ready for the start of the race as everyone strived to survive the opening corners of the tight and undulating circuit.

The race appeared to be settling down nicely into its own little battles as the #21 Flying Lizard car of Dinan suddenly tumbled down the timing screen from their then P3 position. Circuit cameras eventually picked them out on the grass going into the kink with what looked like no power to the wheel and that incident brought out the Safety Car as the corner workers looked to quickly retrieve it back to a place of safety. The team would later confirm that track debris had been lifted upon by the car infant of Dinan and that had hit the emergency kill switch for the engine, leaving Dinan with no power and no method of resetting it himself!!


Ten minutes later the track went back to green as the AMR Am starting driver looked to capitalise on any track position before they pitted and handed over to their respective Pro driver. The best that Putt and Dalton could do however was to retain their starting position relative to the field astray handed over to Kenton Koch and Pat Gallagher respectively.

By the time the available pit stop window was at an end, the decent in laps of their Am's and the out laps of their Pro's had lifted the #15 car up to P7 and the #33 up to P14 but the body language of each AMR car on track said that neither would be settling for these positions with still 20 minutes of racing ahead of them.


Making the most of their new V8 power plant at the front Gallagher was on a mission to avenge the nightmare that they had at Sonoma where an earlier accident in testing went on to affect the whole racing meeting with two DNF's as well as not even making the start of race 3 that weekend.

AMR Drivers Academy driver Kenton Koch also had the race carrot dangling in front of him as he had an overall race podium beaconing. Ath the chequered flag, the #15 BSport Racing car finished P3 overall and P2 in Pro-Am whilst the #33 Rennsport One car literally snatched P10 overall at the flag but more importantly for them - claiming P3 in Pro-Am as well.


Great opening race and we couldn't be happier for either of them - but tomorrow is always another day!

Photo credits - Flying Lizards / GT4 America

Earlier this week, Aston Martin Racing Team Garage 59 gave us some idea of what to expect with the latest iteration of Vantage GT4 that they were due to run out at the fifth round of the Nurburgring Langstecken Serie (VLN) at the Nordschleife this weekend.

Less weight, more downforce all courtesy of a redesigned rear wing, splitter and doors are just some of the changes made to the teams once standard Vantage GT4 race car to allow it to become fully competitive in the NLS's enhanced SP8T class as the team take another preparative step towards the ADAC Total 24H event later next month.



Racing this weekend, the #160 car will have AMR factory driver Darren Turner join the team regulars of Alex West and Chris Goodwin for the first time and thanks to some of their photos today, we can see the some of the visual impact of these changes.

The team will also be running on Michelin tyres from this point forward in preference to the Pirelli's that they have ran to date.

Lets see tomorrow how she flies!!

Racing classics don't come up for sale too often but for those with the required level of disposable income, here in another chance to purchase an iconic pice of Aston Martin Racing history.

Chassis AMRVANTAGEGT3-006 is beast that stole the imagination of the race fans as they affectionately named her 'Billie' as she competed in races 9amongst others) like the ADAC Zurich N24 with a full list of AMR factory drivers such as Darren Turner, Stefan Mucke, Allan Simonsen and Pedro Lamy.


Since those heady days, the car has changed ownership several times between the likes of Paul White, Alex Lienau before residing with its current owner Mike Gensemeyer and his BritecMotorsport outfit.

Not afraid to race such beauties, one of the last races that this car competed in was the HSR Classic from Sebring, Florida in 2019.

Full details of the sale can be found at https://www.classic-trader.com/au/cars/listing/aston-martin/vantage/v12-vantage-gt3/2013/203147?fbclid=IwAR1rZZrl2XqslCbqgxQsj0kNvqOaKi9H0Z3cUZmRV7ub11yufOehkjabj5U

Oh the memories!!

Photo credits - Britec Motorsport